there was not a sweeter kitty meow meow meow in the country or the city meow meow meow

I've had a very cat-filled week (this isn't going to be about food insomuch that I haven't eaten any cats). First my dear boy Lloyd got a urinary tract infection and had to be rushed into surgery before his bladder exploded all over his other organs and it cost me EIGHT HUNDRED DOLLARS. I got this cat from Kitty Kind, a no kill organization full of crazy people, as all people willing to devote so much time and resources to rescuing garbage animals probably are crazy but also thank god they exist or a cat like Lloyd would have been thrown in the drowning bucket. When we got him he had an eye infection and a hernia and now he's got a defective wee wee. He'll have to eat prescription food for the rest of his life which will hopefully be a long one cuz I love him like crazy cakes.


Then like an idiot I volunteered to baby-sit a kitten all weekend. I say I'm an idiot because I had to go pick her up after the longest day of work and disappointment carrying ten tons of shit already and when I got home and wanted to black out for a proper ten hours I had a six week old ball of fluff needing my head and purring all night. TOTALLY WORTH IT.

I've got a lot to say about cats because I am a crazy cat lady. No, there are no (permanent) cats in my apartment right now and there probably wont be for many years. I can't afford them and don't have the time to spend with them. My roommate just told me about an article she read as she petted little Daffodil (the kitten who I assume was named by a child...I hope) that said a pet on average costs over a thousand dollars a year to keep. Perhaps this was a 'how to cope with the recession' piece, encouraging everyone to euthanize their animals to save a buck, I don't know. Whatever, I have no pets now...but when I can there will cats all over the damn place. Still, I am already a crazy cat lady. If I walk into a room and there's a cat in it, it's like everyone else just fades away and there are only the two of us. Music swells. Cats purr.

In itself this isn't such an embarrassing quality. I've definitely had more humiliating objects of affection. But since my family knows of my obsession I get lots of cat related gifts-socks, shirts, pendants, cat shaped boxes, books of cat quotations. So yeah, a cat lady isn't a crazy cat lady until her family finds out and dresses her appropriately.

Anyone who loves animals knows they're setting themselves up for heartbreak. Cats die. It's their worst quality, I think. Not wanting to go through it again this week I maxed out my credit card for Lloyd. Seeing him all sick and scared and drugged up brought back memories of all the other cats I've known, late nights of anxiety and early mornings full of dread as the phone rings with the news. No, they didn't make it. At the end we think back on the quality of that life and try to assess. Was it worth it? Did I do them right? Obviously, these are much easier questions to approach with a cat than a person. Both love and death are far less complicated with animals which I guess is part of the pleasure of their company.

Do animals living in an apartment really have quality of life? My mom's are pretty spoiled. She's like their personal chef/masseuse/cleaning lady. She begs scraps of fish for them at the market and mixes oyster juice into their water. Still, they often seem bored, restless and, let's face it, fat.

Farm cats don't necessarily live an idyllic life either. The drowning bucket was invented out on the farm. There's lots of competition and often little veterinary care, so I hear. I was on two farms this summer. Frosty Morning Farms had two cats, Jezebel and Don Gato. Jezebel was as fickle as her name suggests, but both cats seemed happy, fed, sun kissed etc.


In stark comparison was the cat at Cross Island Farms who I didn't even know existed until I'd been there two days.

Dani, who has four dogs running around like they own the place, mentioned that David had a cat. What cat, I inquired. I see no cat. Oh, it lives up in his office she replied. The office was down the hall from my bedroom and before turning in I peeked in on it. It was a black matted thing kept up in the attic like the mad first wife in a Brontë novel and it creaked the saddest, craziest meow as the light went on. I visited it every day but god that broke my heart. I asked Dani why the cat had been banished and sniffing she said, "Well, it peed in my potted plant and I just don't care for the smell." Good...god...there is no picture of this as it was too depressing.

So there's a wide range in quality of life in the country and the city for cats and people. I've learned through trial and terrible error how a pet should be treated, just how everyone painfully learns how other people should be treated, and themselves. Hopefully well. No locking anyone in attics unless it gets sexy V.C. Andrews style. It never does.

Meow meow meow.

Five Roses

2009 will never see Five Roses Pizza. My first job was there, I was 13 and they paid me five dollars in cash per hour, plus tips. From what the final owner, Cristina, told me recently, not much involving pay roll has changed. This may explain why she was always the only one behind the counter the last few years with the occasional circulating delivery boy.

If you've never worked in a pizzeria let me tell you the pro and con: You can make a pie however it is you best like it, more sauce/more cheese, and eat a slice fresh. You go home with the greasy smell of pizza clogging every pour. Which is the pro and which is the con??

Even though my time there was relatively brief in comparison to other jobs I remember it very vividly. The aprons, the texture of the dough, electrocuting myself on the stove, learning not to drink milk with pizza, a fifth thing...like when Josephine pointed out I shouldn't touch my eyes and hair in front of customers before serving them food. Thanks, now I'm totally self-conscious.

Aside from extorting child labor Five Roses was a meeting place for neighborhoodites. You always bumped into everyone you knew there, family and friends. I remember blushingly trying to cut a pie before the inquisitive eyes of my first serious crush. All their food was from authentic Sicilian recipes, made in the kitchen in the back by an authentic Sicilian. They didn't buy stuff frozen or belong to chain. It was a truly local establishment.

The East Village from ten years ago is so completely changed that when I walk there now it's almost unrecognizable and it'll be different in another ten years. It's weird how shocked and saddened I was to turn the corner and see it had changed in a way I'd never prepared for- Five Roses is closed. The gates are shuttered, the space is for rent, there are poster boards of photos and farewell wishes in the windows. If only I'd known and savored that last slice. Had one last surprise party (I've had like three surprise parties thrown there for me and was surprised every time because I'm an idiot) or at least said goodbye to Cristina...my childhood...something.

But that's kind of how it is. You don't always get to say goodbye.

Five Roses, I love you.

"I bet you don't even bother to compost your own feces!"

Last week someone made a joke about how I should write a blog post about going to the bathroom in a stranger's apartment and it reminded me of another joke someone made to me about how I should write a blog about urinating in public, with photos of all the places I've made my mark. Layers upon layers. So many jokes about composting feces in Robin's sleeping bag! So many!

There was a time when the outdoor relief list would have been very short, non-existent really. A female growing up in the city has few opportunities to pop a squat that don't leave her frighteningly vulnerable. Then a couple years ago I was in Utah with my roommate Claire tailgating at a rodeo and could not fucking take a piss behind the pick up truck. Not kidding when I say it was totally embarrassing. What's so hard about peeing?

Anyway, when I was at Frosty Morning Farms they had an outhouse or 'composting toilet'. It was a little wooden shack up a flight of stairs full of dust, spiders and peat moss to throw down the hole after your bizness. Now, I drink a lot of water and am often self-conscious about the number of times I run to the restroom during the day. But out in the hot sun, weeding or god knows, drinking water and going to pee was the best way to get out of the heat and break the monotony (partially true for working in an office as well) so I did it freely, lighting the way with a candle by the peat moss bucket. After a couple days, Allison took me aside...

She let me know that urine really isn't so good for a compost toilet because it gets too acidic and she usually went, oh, behind the tool shed or by the paddock or behind any convenient tree. A few days later a visitor to the farm was in the outhouse and I could hear the stream like a gushing white water rapid-poor Allison had been listening to me ruin her compost!!

So yeah, peeing outdoors. Once the floodgates were opened...I kind of dug it. Especially at night, in the pitch black, coyotes howling madly in the distance, chickens scattering, night bugs hopping around and down my throat in one noteable instance...it has a kind of magic.

(The view into the farmhouse as I peed on the doorstep)

If you haven't developed the muscles to do it, ladies, get on it. Okay, I almost gave Allison and Karl's teenage sons a free show one afternoon but it's worth the risk.

All jokes about urinating aside, composting toilets are awesome and though I am currently bound by my landlord's stifling restrictions, if I ever build my own house I'd have a composting toilet put in. You wont be contaminating rivers and streams or disrupting soil systems by installing pipes. You can build them anywhere that plumbing is inconvenient. And if you're very bold you can use that compost to fertilize your garden...just don't pee on your garden. That's what behind the tool shed is for.

Incidentally, I didn't get over my outside/bathroom fear on the farm (though they did bring my comfort to an unprecendented level). I got over it just a few days after the tailgating party. I was at the top of Timpanogos, a mountain in Utah, leaning against the summit shack, in front of god and everyone. Which shows if you set a goal for yourself there's nothing you can't accomplish.

Black Bean Soup

Hot off the presses! Hot of the stove actually. I just made the most amazing black bean soup!! It was so good I wanted immediately to tell the internets about it. Hopefully, some poor protein deprived soul will come across this and fill the bean shaped void inside. I was told about this recipe just last night by my pal Robin, so props to her for spreading the word via her mouth.

Black beans and black bean soup always remind me of National Cafe, a tiny Cuban restaurant that used to be on first avenue, where I spent large parts of my allowance in my youth. Or it would be a reward after going to the dentist or something and I'd eat from the side of my mouth that had feeling while food dribbled out the other. They made incredible beans, rice, stewed chicken and banana milkshakes. The day it closed a little part of myself was shuttered and hung with a 'for sale' sign, ya know?

But still I feel National Cafe's influence. Rice and beans, cooked in a variety of styles, is my comfort food. So Robin told me about this recipe and I was like well I don't have rice and I don't have beans, but I have all the other bits so I ran around the corner to my local friendly deli guy and bought a 99 cent can of Goya black beans and got down to business. Delicious comfort.

Recipe for vegetarian black bean soup:

Can o' beans
veggie stock or bouillon cube (you could make it non-vegetarian and add chicken stock or pork which is I'm sure what was going down at National Cafe, though I was blissfully uncaring)
a few scallions
couple cloves of garlic
lemon
healthy teaspoon of red cider vinegar (any kind would do except maybe balsamic)
tiny pinch of cayenne pepper
dash of black pepper
olive oil
optional, yet highly recommended: slices of avocado

Chop up your scallions and set some aside. Put the rest in a pot with a bit of olive oil and minced garlic. Cook them on low heat till they're soft. Open your can o' beans and rinse them then throw them in the pot when the garlic/scallions are ready. Add enough water (or stock) to cover the beans and set it to boil. When it's boiling add the bouillon unless you used stock. Add the cayenne and black pepper and stir. Turn the heat down to a simmer. At this point if you want to thicken it you can puree some of the beans and liquid then add it back in. I have a hand puree thing which is awesome. Add the vinegar and stir. Pour some in a bowl and squeeze in lemon juice. You don't need that much, use sound lemon judgement. Sprinkle the rest of the scallions on top and avocado slices and you have a bowl of heaven.

I don't have a picture of the soup because I ate it so fast, sorry. Make your own and you'll see how it looks.

UPDATE:

I was thinking about this post the last couple days, because I'm a dork and I realized everything I espouse about eating locally and seasonally is kind of thrown out the window here. I mean-lemons? avocado? In New York? In December? That's fucked up. I guess beans could be worse, they are canned not refrigerated. No icy trucks to get them around but still, trucks. New York being the cultural capital that it is has many different cooking histories from every part of the globe and they all import their sensibilities and ingredients. Cuban cooking (though its pretty presumptuous to align my soup with Cuban cuisine) has infiltrated my personal tastes and I haven't yet gotten to the point where I can cast aside black beans because they don't grow in my back yard. What do you love that's out of season or from far away? What do you love that's only east coast?

Seeds

This summer I neglected my garden. I was away in other people's gardens and had no time for things like weeding or watering. The sun was there doing its thing. Sometimes the clouds would part. That's it.

Of course upon my return the place looked like ass. Nothing had been transplanted on time and all the herbs were sadly strangled in their pots, by their own roots no less. And yet...things grew.
Nature-what a crazy bitch she is.

So here was the total:

Six tomatoes, a handful of beets, and enough beans to replant them next spring. There were also enough basil leaves to flavor a mixed drink. Speaking of which there's a lot of mint growing randomly around, so mojitos for everyone! I have grand plans for next year. There's going to be a pea place (where I grow peas) and troughs of Magic Mollies. There will be strawberries (we have a few in a big yellow tub now but my mouth didn't harvest any) galore and chickens. Chickens.


There is a chance it will all fall to ruin again. That's the chance everyone takes any time they attempt something positive because unlike things that are bad for you doing something good for you is hard work. Diets, exercise, educating yourself, being nice to people... All practically impossible!! At least this is what we're conditioned to believe. Eating organic is too expensive, shopping from local growers is too complicated, eating healthy is too boring, recycling is a waste of time, no one can remember to take canvas bags to the grocery store don't bother, nothing you plant will ever grow.

My garden marched on without me much as the planet will march on without humanity once we've wiped ourselves off it. But if I'd done a little more with it, some weeding for instance, we could have supported each other! No one would have to be wiped off anyone's face. I'm trying to say that you can work with nature or you can ignore it-guess which action turns out better? It's not a perfect analogy since my garden's decline isn't causing climate change but you get it.

Personally I'm not very active on the doing things for the planet front but I've noticed my awareness and interest has increased with every seed I plant. Every seed. We have a compost bin so now I don't throw organic waste into the garbage (for anyone holding their breath to find out what happened with my almost full compost bin, one day Claire just picked it up and dumped the whole thing over a garden bed. It had actually turned to dirt! Didn't need that help line after all) and I reuse bags and recycle and buy organic and am trying to just buy local (if only Europe didn't make such awesome cheese) and these are all pitiful small things, seeds if you will, that hopefully will grow into something more, with time. But only if I put in a cultivating hand. Mmm, mixed metaphors are delicious. Like Mojitos.

I guess what I'm saying (and reminding myself of) is even though a seed looks small and insignificant, plant it because it's amazing what it can produce.

Raymond Sings!

Hey here's that song about pie making Raymond wrote. I hope he appreciates me putting his picture all up on the internet. Kisses, Ray!

"Liveblogging" Thanksgiving

Wednesday November 26th, 7:52 PM

So I wanted to record my cooking experiences this year since it is my first Thanksgiving where I've taken a really active part in any kind of preparation (As I type cranberries are popping merrily on the stove. Wait, are they supposed to do that?) But I can't really keep up with today's modern technologies of whatever the hell live blogging is...partly because I'm not particularly tech savvy and partly because I've imbibed a good deal of the cooking wine and bourbon for the Kentucky Derby Pie. I should be so lucky to escape this ordeal without any third degree burns.

Isn't it interesting that on Thanksgiving everyone is eating more or less the same dishes all across America? I haven't decided if that's creepy or cool but as I compiled my grocery list for this undertaking I noticed that the traditional dishes are composed of ingredients ACTUALLY IN SEASON. Refreshing.

I just plan to write what I'm doing when it gets interesting (...to me) and post it all on Thanksgiving night with pictures. You're welcome!

8:07 PM

Hmm, cranberry sauce smells a lot like mulled wine. Or is that me? Oh well, everything is better mulled...with wine. Moving on to stuffing. Jeez, that's a lot of bread. Stuffing is fascinating-like many soggy bread dishes it was obviously once a solution to the eternal question, "What the fuck to do with all this stale bread?"


8:38 PM

MC Hammer just came on the iTunes. Thank god.

8:46 PM

Okay, the cranberry sauce is a little too sweet but you can't unsweet what has been sweetened. Life lesson, people. Cut up my potatoes for the first bake of the twice-baked potato recipe and have them precariously balanced in the oven with the stuffing. What to do, what to do? So much of cooking is deliberate planning and timing. The pecans have been stewing in bourbon time to make a crust. And dip into the bourbon supply.

9:01 PM

Let's Get It On was playing as I kneaded my pie crust. I'm anticipating some sexy pie...which considering who it's going to feed is fairly disturbing.


9:20 PM

As I formed my pie crust into a pretty border my friend Raymond's song about pie came on iTunes, he wrote it for my little movie about a pie making villain. The recording is excellent and made me smile. I'm gonna find a way to post it here so you can all listen as you make your next pie and imagine you are Holly, the Pie Socialite.

9:37 PM

I used caraway seed sour dough bread for the stuffing, it's tasty but doesn't quite have the right texture. It's supposed to be like glue right? More vegetable stock and back in the oven...is this the beginning of disaster? I KNEW it was going too smoothly!

9:44 PM

I'm waiting for the potatoes to cool and drinking Jack Daniels on the floor. Ahh, the holidays.

9:50 PM

Found a cranberry on the floor. Ate it.

10:34 PM

Okay, cut up sweet potatoes and put them to boil. Now I'm digging the potato insides out of their skins, leaving the shell intact. In the battle of me vs. skins, skins is kicking ass. I probably should have baked them longer! Pie and stuffing have come out of the oven and look good though the stuffing has baked down a bit. No one likes stuffing anyway, right?

10:51 PM

The last skin is empty!!!!!


11:35 PM

Skins refilled! I am horribly sober and should probably have a glass of water.

Thursday November 27th, Thanksgiving, 12:03 AM

Oh God, what's the point?

12:04 AM

Rallying, I made the first part of my sweet potato souffle to be baked tomorrow morning because I don't know how it'll survive being heated up. Next year I need to find recipes that don't rely so heavily on sugar or at least stock up on more honey earlier (One day I'll have my own hive!) so I can do some substitution. I did a bit in my S. P. mix and we'll see how it tastes.


12:23 AM

Okay, twice baked potatoes have been baked twice and I seem to have consumed an entire meal through osmosis. Now some clean up so my roommate doesn't strangle me in my sleep.


12:45 AM

While struggling to make room for all this prepared food in the fridge I came across containers full of materials that can not be identified. After hours of delicious cooking smells I'm being sent to bed with the gagtastic leftovers of meals past...I ran out to the garbage to get rid of the horrorshow as quickly as possible and almost ran into a guy walking a three legged pitbull. Sad...Time for sleep.

Black Friday November 28th, 12:07 AM

I wrote a bunch of stuff between last night and now and it was all deleted. Let us say sweet potatoes were sweetened, showers were taken and I eventually made it out the door. And what happened? Mostly eating. Also a fair amount of waiting since the turkey wasn't cooked as soon as we'd all hoped. And what of the turkey, indeed?


Well, I wasn't responsible for cooking it. I did ask that we buy a free range organic turkey this year and was graciously indulged. Mr. and Mrs. Ed accompanied me to the Co-op and bought that fancy turkey just for me and it was awesome once it was finally roasted through. So dinner was mostly all my side dishes until about six 'o clock.

There are a few stages of learning re: Thanksgiving. First you learn about the desperate Pilgrims aided by friendly Indians who helped them through a terrifying American winter and the delightful feast they had to celebrate their new friendship. Then you learn about the Trail of Tears. After that, the scope of America's gluttonous consumerism obscures all positive aspects of the holiday. But, finally, I've settled on the idea that whatever we dress it up as, Thanksgiving is really a celebration of the harvest, a good old-fashioned animal sacrifice(yay, Buffy!). Winter is ahead. For the Pilgrims and everyone that meant long nights, cold days and the very real possibility that they might not make it through. On my cozy couch, stuffed with pie, that possibility seems so remote it's almost offensive to consider it. But there are dark times always where we think spring will never come and on Thanksgiving we're setting aside one day to appreciate that it WILL come and with it the bounty and life before us will be renewed. It's a cycle humanity has trusted and relied on for a long time and part of the reason I think and write about food so much is because of how important and rare it is to really be connected to that cycle.

Sharing some food with some folks renews that connection in some small way, I think. I am thankful I did it today. And for the half a Derby pie in my fridge right now.

Recipes:

Cranberry Sauce
-a 12-ounce bag of cranberries.
-1/2 cup cabernet wine
-2 tablespoons of orange zest.
-1/2 cup orange juice
-1 cinnamon stick
-some salt, a pinch, and also a pinch of cayenne pepper.

Add 3/4 cup of sugar to a sauce pan. Pour in the juice and the wine; add the zest, the cinnamon stick and those spices. Bring that up to a simmer on medium heat. When it's simmering, add the cranberries. They are going to start to pop, it's going to take about 10 minutes. The sauce will also start to thicken. Throw in a 1/4 cup of cold water and turn off the heat. Take out the cinnamon stick.

Herb Stuffing
-12 cups slightly dry bread
-1/3 cup snipped parsley
-1/3 cup finely chopped onion
-1 1/2 tsp. salt
-1 tsp. ground sage
-1 tsp. dried thyme, crushed
-1 tsp. dried rosemary, crushed
-2 cups of vegetable broth
-6 tablespoons of butter, melted

Combine bread, parsley, onion, salt, sage,thyme, and rosemary. Add broth and butter; toss lightly to mix. Use to stuff a 12-pound turkey or bake covered, in a 2-quart casserole at 325º until heated through, about one hour.

Sweet Potato Souffle
-3 c. mashed sweet potatoes
-1 c. sugar (or one cup honey so your teeth don't fall out)
-2 tsp. salt
-2 eggs
-1 tsp. vanilla
-1/3 stick butter, melted
-1/2 c. milk
Mix all ingredients and pour into greased baking dish. Cover with topping.
TOPPING:
-1 c. brown sugar
-1/3 c. flour -1 c. chopped nuts -1/3 stick butter, melted
Mix thoroughly and sprinkle over top. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

Twice Baked Potatoes
I had a recipe but didn't follow it...cut your potatoes in half, bake them till they're soft enough to scoop out the insides then mash those insides up with everything fattening and delicious-milk, chedder, butter, sour cream, salt, pepper, green onions. Put the filling back in the skins and baked 'em till they're brown on top.

Derby Pie
Again didn't follow a particular recipe...made a crust from butter and flour soaked my pecans in bourbon, mixed them in a butter/sugar/egg/flour/vanilla mix, laid the bottom with chocolate chips, pecans on top, baked till goldeny on the edge. I should write a freaking cook book.